Chinese scientist claims Chandrayaan-3 landed ‘nowhere near lunar south pole’

Celebrated Chinese scientists and chief of the country's lunar exploration program, Ouyang Ziyuan, said that India's Chandrayaan-3 mission landed nowhere near the Moon's south pole.

On August 23, India created history after Chandrayaan-3 made it the first country to have a soft landing near the lunar south pole. (Image: ISRO)

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Celebrated Chinese scientist and chief scientist of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, Ouyang Ziyuan, has claimed in an interview that the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 mission has landed “nowhere near the lunar south pole”.

The landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the lunar surface in August broke China’s record for the southernmost lunar landing. But now, Ziyuan says that claims about India’s achievements are blown out of proportion, according to Bloomberg.

Ouyang Ziyuan told the Chinese language publication Science Times that the Chandrayaan-3 landing site was nowhere near the lunar pole, which is defined to be at around 88.45 degrees latitude. The ISRO mission landed at 69.373 degrees South latitude and 32.319 degrees East longitude.

Also read | Watch this space: Not all Chinese scientists question India’s Chandrayaan-3

“It’s wrong. The landing site of Chandrayaan-3 is not at the lunar south pole, not in the lunar south pole region, nor is it near the lunar south pole region.” Bloomberg quotes him as saying.

If Ziyuan’s statements were represented accurately and fairly by Bloomberg and other publications, it would be one of those rare moments that a space scientist working with one country’s agency disparaged the space program of another country.

The most recent example of that is when Yuri Borisov, head of the Roscosmos agency, said mass equipment failures and ageing parts were endangering crew safety on the International Space Station. (ISS) Interestingly, Borisov’s comments on ISS, built jointly by the United States, Russia and other countries, came at a time when Russia-United States relations came to a head due to the former’s invasion of Ukraine.

While Borisov’s comments were made to justify Russia’s discontinuation of its participation in the ISS program, it is not exactly clear under what circumstances Ziyuan made the comments.

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